H1N1 and lessons learned

Some members of the press contributed to this problem by failing to provide clear explanations of a complex situation, while other media members behaved responsibly and provided valuable information. In retrospect, H1N1 points to a larger issue of how we, as a society, need to come to grips with how to most effectively disseminate information during public health emergencies. The media, of course, will be key in that process.

Going forward, the H1N1 pandemic demonstrates the increasingly important role that bioinformatics should play in infectious disease efforts. A certain lag time will always exist between the discovery of a new virus strain and the availability of epidemiologic data on how much harm it causes in humans. This lag phase should be bridged by testing the damage caused by the virus in appropriate model systems. Bioinformatics is a growing area of science that provides this capability, as evidenced by our use of the NIH database to predict potential H1N1 severity. Such tools are critical, and enable scientists to predict disease outcomes with increasing accuracy. They also provide the best options for predicting the optimal pathway for therapeutic development. As a nation, we must continue to support and better integrate these sophisticated technologies into our research infrastructure.

Finally, the H1N1 pandemic emphasizes the importance of devoting sufficient time, money and resources toward infectious disease research. It exemplifies society’s vulnerability to new infections, as previously seen with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), successfully contained in the U.S. in 2003 and, more recently, avian flu. It’s a perennial race between new infectious diseases arising and medical science reacting to them, understanding them and ultimately defeating them. We must remain ever vigilant.

Peters, a bioinformatics specialist, and Sette, a vaccine biology expert, are scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, a nonprofit biomedical research institute.